Recorder for watchmen and the like



Auge 1'2 192 5 E. D. CHADVVICK RECORDER FOR WATGHMEN AND THE LIKE Original Filed May 27. 1920 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 E. D. CHADVVICK RECORDER FOR WATCHMEN AND THE LIKE Griginal Filed May 27. 1920 3 Sheets-Shea'v, 2

E). Ci-iADJWCK.

RECORDER FOR WATCHMEN AND THE LIKE Original Filed May 27. 1920 3 Sheets-$heet 3 I WM? P S Patented Aug. 12, 1924.

UNITED STATES EVERETT D. CHADWICK, OF WINCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.

RECORDER FOR WATCHMEN AND THE LIKE.

Application filed May 27, 1920, Serial To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EVERETT D. CHAD-wick, a citizen of the United States, residing at Winchester, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Recorders for WVatchmen and the like, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in recorders for watchmen and the like, to evidence the presence of the watchman at the various stations of his prescribed trip. Hitherto it has been thought essential that the watchman should carry a timepiece, or that the station where his record is to be made should have electrical connection with a centrally located timepiece so that his record will be made on a sheet moved by the clock mechanism. The present invention provides for advancement of the record sheet without such mechanism, with consequent notable saving in materials and supervisory attention, including the elimination of mul titudes of clock mechanisms, if compared with portable watchmans clock systems; or of much electrical wiring and apparatus, if compared with those systems in which all the stations are connected with a single recording clock. The recorder, which for ordinary uses will be portable, may have a rotatable paper disk on which the record is to be made, coupled with the usual matrix for co-operating with distinctive keys in making the impressions Whose individually distinctive forms and relative locations on the sheet constitute the record. In one form, it contains mechanism by which the disk is normally held in fixed position within the recorder, and is rotated one step by the turning of the key which forms the impression. The order in which impressions appear on the disk thus shows the order in which the stations are visited. The length of the trip, or the arrangement of stations, may be such that the visiting of all of the stations, evidenced by the completeness of the record, involves a sufficient lapse of time, so that the time of visiting each can be approximately deduced provided only that the time of starting be known. This can be controlled by the time when the apparatus is issued to the watchman for his use each day, with a fresh record disk to be filled; or it may be controlled by any suitable automatic or other means. The invention further provides means by which the same disk can be used No. 384,570. Renewed January 9, 1924.

for successive days, as over Sunday, or over a succession of holidays, without the record of one day being super-imposed upon the record of another day. While the arrangement described is deemed preferable for ordinary uses, it is also an advantage of the invention that the apparatus can be adapted to record all of the successive stations of a single trip on a single radial line of the disk without advancing the dial a step at each station, and then automatically to advance it a step to another radial line for the return trip or for the next trip. If this form be used, the disk will gradually be filled solidly with the record; and in this case the disk can be used continuously until filled; while if the first mentioned form be used the disk will be filled with a series of separated spiral lines of impressions, one line for each trip; and the trip records of the next and succeeding days, if the same disk continue to be used, will appear as lines in the spaces left by the first and earlier series of records.

These objects may be accomplished by the very simple means of providing'a case, carrying the record disk and matrix, in which there is arrangement for the record keys to be inserted. The turning of the key a'ctuates a pawl which turns the disk one step; and if the gearing between the pawl and the clamp which holds the disk incommensurate with the number of stations, i. e. if the angular distance used by the total number of stations whose key records correspond to a single trip be not an aliquot part of the whole circumference of the disk, the records of one revolution thereof will not coincide in location with those of the next preceding. revolution. The making of the record and the operating of the pawl are done by separate parts of the key; andhence it is possible in any particular key or keys to omit the pawl operating element. In such case, the disk remains unadvanced, and the various keys from which this part is omitted may make their several impressions all on the same radius, at various and individually charactertistic radial distances from the center according to their individual constructions. An embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings; but it will be understood that actual embodiments of the invention may vary in many respects from the particular one here shown. It is intended that the patent shall cover,

by suitable expression in the appended claims, whatever features of patentable novelty exist in the invention disclosed.

In the drawings: Figure 1 is a plan of the recorder wlth the top of the case lifted and with one of the recording keys inserted;

Figure 2 is a plan of the bottom of the same, inverted and with the bottom removed. Figure 3 is a side elevation of the key;

Figure 4 is an end elevation of the operating end of the same;

Figures 5, 6 and 7 are side elevations, in section respectively on the lines 55, 6-6, 7-7, of Figure 2, but with the instrument turned right side up, as in Figure 1 Figure 8 is a bottom plan of certain interior details, including the matrix plate; and

Figure 9 is a plan of the disk with a portion showing an arrangement of records thereon. a

Referring to the drawings, 10 indicates a disk of paper or other suitable recording material, removably held by a cap 11 according to any usual or suitable construcwith the spindle 16 which projects through from the other compartment. Said other compartment is normally closed and contains the works. It has a bottom plate 21 between which and the plate 14 the spindle 16 and the other parts in thiscompartment are mounted. These two plates. 14, 21, which are removable together, are held together, and spaced apart, by standards 22. The spindle 16 is turned by .the gear 17,

which it carries in the works compartment in mesh with the worm 18. The shaft of the worm 18 is conveniently journaled in blocks 23 mounted on the under side of plate 14,- andc-arries a ratchet 24, which is turned fractionally whenever the pawl 24 is moved a. stroke. As illustrated, the ratchet has sixteen teeth, and the gear 17 has twenty-seven, and since it requires a complete rotation of the ratchet, that is sixteen steps, to cause an advance of the gear 17 through one twenty-seventh of a rotation, it follows that for a complete rotation of the gear 17, and with it the plate 14 and disk 10, it will take four hundred and thirty-two steps of the ratchet. If there be ten stations in a trip record, and assuming the disk to be set so that the first record will fall on the radial line marked S, Figure 9, the disk will then show, after the watchman has completed the first trip around the ten stations, a series of impressions in a spiral path across radial lines S to S indicated by the dots T The next trip will produce the records indicated by dots T on radial lines S to S and so on, continuing around the disk, until on the forty-third trip the impressions will be on lines S to S shown by dots T. The last record on the forty-third trip will fall on line S three steps away from the line marked S upon which the initial impression was made. Accordingly the records made on the fortyfourth trip, will begin on the line following line S and end on line S as shown by the circles T, and will be two steps away from therecords of corresponding stations made on the first trip. Therefore during the second revolution of the disk, all the impressions which are made at the same radial distance from the center, as those which were made on the first revolution, will be two steps away from the latter. Similarly, on the third revolution, the records of the eighty-seventh trip will be two steps away from the records of the forty-fourth trip, and four away from the records of the first trip; on the fourth revolution, the records of the one-hundred and thirteenth trip will be two steps away from the records of the eighty-seventh trip and six away from those of the first trip; and so on, each series of impressions being two steps away from the immediately preceding series. The recording part of the apparatus may be constructed to be operated by a recording key of any ordinary or suit-able type, as for example, the well known type which is illustrated in Figure 3, where its head is marked 25, carrying the identifying character marked 26 in such a place that it will, when operated, mesh with some one ofthe matrices 26, shown in Figure 8. The operation of the key may also be of any suitable type, as, for exam 316, that illustrated in Figure 6, where the iead of the key in turning to make the record slips past a slight obstacle in the form of a spring-pressed barrier 27, yielding laterally and thereby standardizing the printing force of the blow which the key delivers toward its matrix, according to principles already well known. lVhen thus turning, the web of the key engages and swings av pin 32, on a lever 30 which works the pawl 24, so that the lever 30 withdraws the pawl one tooth. The angular swing of the pin 32 necessary to cause shifting of the pawl 24: from one tooth to the next is great enough to require the key to be swung to recording making position, shown dotted in Figure 6, before the pawl will shift. This insures a record being made on the disk 10, before it can be rotated to a new position, for advance movement of the disk does not occur until the key after making its record is turned back tobe withdrawn, thus allowing the spring 31 to return the lever 30 and pawl, thereby advancing the ratchet 24 one tooth. Any ordinary detent 33 may prevent the ratchet from moving in the opposite direction. The two together hold the ratchet stationary with sufficient power and leverage to keep the disk 10 from moving except when the ratchet is turned by the pawl. hen so turned, the worm 18 is thereby turned fractionally and the record disk 10 is thereby turned a still smaller fraction so that each impression of the key is advanced angularly a little beyond the last. And if the feature of incommensurability above described be present there may be successive revolutions of the disk without a line of records being superimposed upon the lines already made.

The box may also comprise apparatus of any usual or suitable sort for making an impression on the disk each time the cover of the box is opened. Such is indicated at 34.

In cases where it is preferred to have the disk advance its step only at the end of a series of impressions this may be accomplished by omitting that part of the web of the key (its extremity, as illustrated) which engages the pin 32, from such keys of the series as are not desired to advance the disk, and by retaining it on the last key of the series. This last key then will retract the pawl on its impression-making stroke: and upon withdrawal of that key the pawl will advance the disk one step.

I claim as my invention:

1. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a casing having a movable record sheet therein, actuating means for moving said sheet, and a series of individually distinguishable keys adapted to make records on said sheet and to set said actuating means in position to effect automatically the movement of said sheet after a record has been made.

2. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a. casing having a movable record sheet therein, actuating means for mow ing said sheet, and a series of individually distinguishable keys adapted to make records on said sheet and to set said actuating means in position to effect automatically the movement of said sheet upon return movement of the key from record making position. i

3. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a rotatable holder for a record disk; recording keys therefor; and means, controlled'by the making of a record, for automatically rotating said holder a step after a record is made.

4. Recording apparatus comprising, in

combination, a rotatable holder for a record disk; recording keys there-for; a ratchet for turning said holder; and mechanism for operating said ratchet in successive single steps; said mechanism being adapted to be set in actuating position by a record key when the key is moved to make a. record on the disk.

5. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, arotatable holder for a record disk; recording keys therefor; a ratchet; reducing gearing between it and the disk holder; a pawl preventing reverse movement of the ratchet; an operating pawl; and a spring, tending to hold the ratchet against the turning backward and yielding to the recording key, whereby the disk is normally held locked and is movable only after the pushing back of said yielding pawl.

6. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a rotatable holder for a record disk; recording keys therefor; and means controlled by the making of a record, for automatically turning said holder a step at ter a record is made, adapted to be actuated by one of said keys; the recording and the disk turning elements being different parts of the key.

7. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a rotatable holder for a record disk; recording keys therefor; and means automatically turning said holder a step after a record is made, adapted to be set in actuating position by one of said keys; the recording and the disk turning elements being different parts of the key, and the disk turning element of the key being a portion thereof which canbe omitted without afiecting operation of the record making element thereof.

8. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a rotatable holder for a record disk; a series of recording keys; and mechanism whereby each key rotates the holder a step; the aggregate angular advancement caused by the said series being incommensurate with the number of steps in a complete rotation of the disk, whereby successive rotations may occur without superposition of records.

9. A portable recording apparatus comprising a case having a cover and a lock and adapted to hold a removable record disk' said case being adapted to receive a recording key for the disk; mechanism whereby the disk is rotatable step by step; and means set in actuating position by the recording key, for rotating the disk upon the withdrawal of the key.

10. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a case having means to hold a. record sheet, a series of individually distinguishable keys adapted to make records thereon, and key-operated means controlled by the making of the record for advancing the sheet.

11. Recording apparatus comprising, in combination, a record disk, means for im- 5 pressing a record thereon, and means adapted upon the making of a record to alter the angular position of the disk with respect to the impressing means, the angular change eflected being incommensurate with a complete rotation, whereby successive rotations of the disk relative to the impressing means may occur Without superposition of records.

Signed at Boston, Massachusetts, this fourteenth day of May, 1920.

EVERETT D. CHADWVICK. 

